Archangel's Kiss

She was gone down the corridor in a swirl of rust-colored fabric an instant later, her words reverberating in Elena's skull. But it was Sam who was important at this moment - the female archangel might actually physically harm him in her current state of mind, one which seemed to hold nothing of sanity and everything of a sadistic kind of pleasure.

Beyond scared for the boy, she was fighting uselessly against her bonds when Galen and Venom swept past at preternatural speed. "Ugh!" It was an ungraceful cry as the power holding her to the wall evaporated at almost the same instant. Getting to her feet, she grabbed the gun, raced after the other two . . . and came to a screeching halt a few feet behind Michaela.

Galen stood in front of the archangel, bleeding from several cuts on his body and face.

Venom was getting up from a corner where the stone itself had been shattered by the impact of his body. Blood dripped down his face, but his eyes were a hypnotic slitted gold-green, the cobra rising to the surface.

Michaela stared at Galen. "You think I would harm the child."

"You've already done violence in a place of healing."

Elena sucked in a breath at the faint glow around Michaela's wings.Jesus. "If you release that power here," she said through lips that were starting to swell, "you'll probably collapse the building, killing not only Sam but any other children inside."

Michaela turned to pin Elena with a gaze that was pure light, no pupils, no irises, no longer in any sense human. Of course, Michaela had never been that. But today the difference between angel and archangel was a heat that left Elena fighting to hold her gaze, her own eyes streaming with tears.

It was tempting, so tempting, to fire the gun, but if the bullet went through Michaela's body, there was a chance it could ricochet off the walls and shatter the glass of the patient rooms a breath away. She put it away, dropped a knife into her hand, her eyes on Michaela's throat.

"I will not hurt the child." It was Michaela's voice, but so choked with power, it thundered with rage, a thousand voices contained.

Elena fought the urge to step back, knowing she was way out of her league, but also knowing she had to help delay Michaela long enough for more powerful help to arrive.

"If you don't tamp it down, you will."

The female archangel continued to look at Elena, her head cocked in a way that was creepily inhuman. Elena had the feeling of fingers crawling across her mind, trying to pry their way in. Bile rose in her throat, but she held her position, realizing that if Michaela had to try to find a way in, it meant Raphael was protecting her. She wasn't stupid enough to rebuff that protection.

"So weak." A statement almost without malice - as if Elena was simply below her notice. That scared Elena even more. Because no matter what, Michaela had always been very human in her emotions. Right now, she could have been in the Quiet.

Turning back to Galen, Michaela raised a hand. Galen swayed as if hit by a blow, but stood his ground. Michaela laughed, made a hard slicing motion. This time, the big, heavily muscled angel slammed into the wall, saving his wings only by dint of twisting his body so he hit that wall face-first.

Blood smeared the stone, but Elena's attention was on Venom. The vampire had struck while Michaela's attention was on Galen, burying his fangs in the archangel's neck the moment after Galen hit the wall. Elena released her blade at the same instant. It hit home on the other side of Michaela's neck.

Screaming in rage, Michaela tore Venom off, throwing him so hard, he ended up motionless and twisted at the other end of the corridor. Then she reached up to pull the knife out as if it was nothing more than a toothpick, her arteries sealing up before Elena's eyes. The knife hit the floor with a metallic sound as she lifted a finger at Elena. "Which limb would you like to lose first?"

Jesus. Jesus.Elena knew there was no way she could stop Michaela when two much older immortals had failed - the archangel would crush her heart before she managed to get to the gun, much less pull the trigger.Where are you, Raphael?

The sea crashed into her mind, a violent storm.I'm on my way. Keep her calm. If she releases her power, it'll destroy the Refuge itself.

Making a split-second decision, Elena wiped the back of her hand across her mouth, the cuts on her lips still seeping blood. "I'll take you to Sam."

The female archangel waited.

The hairs on the back of her neck rising in primitive warning, Elena took the lead, hearing the whisper of Michaela's dress as she followed.Galen and Venom are both down. Galen's eyes had blinked open in the last few seconds, but Venom looked bad, really bad.I think she broke his spine, maybe his neck. And a vampire could die from a broken neck if enough other damage had been done.

He's not dead yet.

The last word was curt. A chill curled around her heart. She'd never thought she'd mourn his loss, but Venom had shown himself willing to lay down his life to protect a child. It made him better, far better, than an archangel who'd level the Refuge while enraged with power. It reminded her too much of another archangel - one bloated with toxin. Just how much of Uram did Michaela carry?

Heart thudding, Elena stopped in front of the glass enclosure where Sam lay in peaceful sleep. She saw Keir arrive out of the corner of her eye and tried to warn him off with a frantic movement of her hand, but Keir shook his head. "Sam's resting," he said in an easy tone, as if an archangel wasn't about to go nuclear beside them. "The healing is progressing extremely well."

"He won't be scarred?"

Elena found Michaela's question peculiar until she realized Michaela wasn't talking about the boy's superficial injuries.

"No, there'll be no permanent damage." Keir put an arm on Michaela's, braving the heat that blazed from her skin. "He'll grow up as he should."

Elena watched Michaela place her hand on the glass. "He's so fragile." The blaze faded in a slow wave. "So breakable."

"Children always are," Keir said, his tone gentle, his eyes ancient in that youthful face.

"It's a risk we take."

"Too much," Michaela whispered. "The risk is too much."

The tableau froze in Elena's mind - an archangel of impossible beauty dressed in blood, her hand lying on the glass, her fingers trembling with emotions that brought tears to Elena's throat. What would Michaela have been, she wondered, if she hadn't lost her child? Would the selfishness that touched her every move have matured into something better? Or would she have become another Neha, creating her child as a poisonous mirror?

"Better to break their necks when they're born."

Elena slid out the gun. If Michaela made a single move, she'd empty the entire clip into the archangel's wings before Michaela could turn, use her powers to disarm Elena.

Because given the choice of a possible ricochet versus certain death for Sam, she'd chance the ricochet.

"Don't you think so?" the archangel said to Keir in a voice that was jarring in its thoughtfulness.

"We do not kill our young."

Silence. When the archangel drew back from the glass, her face was as Elena had always seen it - perfection without mercy. Turning away with a nod to Keir, she left in a sweep of bronze wings and white silk stained dark red, her beauty imprinting an afterimage that was hard to ignore.

Elena let out a shuddering breath.She's gone.

Take Keir to Venom.

Elena was already moving in that direction, Keir at her side. They arrived to find Galen - his face a mess of blood and torn skin - kneeling beside the fallen vampire.

"He's severely injured. Snapped spine, fractured skull, collapsed lung. His heart may have been pierced by a broken rib."

"He bit Michaela," Elena said, not sure if that made any difference.

"Then he likely discharged the poison in his fangs." Keir began to run featherlight fingers over Venom's body. "That'll make him easier to handle."

"Can his poison harm an angel?"

"Not in an enduring way," Galen responded, "but it causes violent pain in most."

"He's dying." Sitting back on his heels, his face white with strain, Keir nodded at Galen.

"Will you carry him to the treatment room?"

Galen slid his arms beneath Venom's broken body. Elena bit back her negative response, born of the mortal knowledge that said the victim of a spinal cord injury shouldn't be moved. Keir surely knew a lot more about treating such injuries in vampires than she ever would. As they moved to the room, she felt the scent of the sea, the wind, fill her mind.

Relief kicked her like a bucking horse. "Raphael's here."

But could even an archangel save a vampire so broken? What would it do to Raphael to lose one of his Seven?

Chapter 31

Elena was wiping the blood off her cheeks when Raphael left Venom's room. "I have need of your gifts, Elena."

She put down the damp towel she'd found in one of the empty treatment rooms. Her face still hurt, but not as much as it would have if she'd still been human - healing had already begun on some level. "The dead angel?"

A nod.

"Venom - is he . . . ?"

"He's not easy to kill."

They didn't speak on the flight to the body. The site where it lay was a huge tumble of rocks. Making a quick appraisal of the dangerous, uneven area, she realized landing was going to be problematic. Pride might have led her to attempt it anyway, but she was supremely conscious that right now, Raphael needed her functional, capable of doing a task only she could.A little help.

Changing position so he flew above her, Raphael ordered her to fold her wings. It was surprisingly hard to go against her newborn instincts, but she managed to snap them shut.

Raphael caught her before she could even begin to fall, taking her down to a perfect landing on the nearest stable piece of rock.

"Thanks." Mind already on the body, she shifted closer. From above, it had appeared as if the angel had been thrown onto the rocks, his bones shattered, his limbs so damaged that not all were whole. Now, she saw that his head had been separated from his torso, his chest a gaping hole missing not just his heart, but all his internal organs.

"Someone wanted to make very sure he wouldn't rise." The angel's rib cage gleamed in the mountain sunlight, his blood no longer wet but holding a hard sheen that had her leaning forward in frowning concentration. "It's like his body's turning to stone." The carapace of dark red was strangely beautiful.

"It's an illusion," Raphael said. "His cells are trying to repair the damage."

She jerked back. "He's still alive?"

"No. But it takes a long time for an immortal to truly die."

"It's not immortality is it? If you can die?"

"Compared to a human life . . ."

Yes."So cut off the head, remove the organs for extra insurance."

"His brain was also removed."

Elena stared at the head. "It looks whole." She reached forward, then drew back. "I really can't catch anything?" she asked, her fingers curling into her palms as she neared blood-matted hair that might've once been blond.

"No." But he was already crouching on the other side of the body, his hand lifting up what remained of the angel's head.

The back of it was gone. An empty husk. Feeling her face heat with a wave of disbelief, she nodded at him to put it back down. "Thorough job."